Summer Myatt
Sierra Nevada Corp., Xage Security and Blue Ridge Networks evaluated their security devices against emulated threat scenarios as part of the inaugural cohort of the Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator program managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The CECA program seeks to assess and demonstrate in cohorts emerging cyber technologies against prioritized threats in a utility environment to help accelerate the commercialization of such technologies, NREL said Monday.
The program’s sponsors include the Department of Energy’s Office Of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Xcel Energy and Duke Energy.
CECA Cohort 1 testing participants used NREL’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems cyber range to emulate energy systems and evaluate the capability of their devices in protecting networks against threats.
SNC assessed its platform Binary Armor and Blue Ridge Networks evaluated its product LinkGuard during the CECA Cohort 1 testing event. Xage demonstrated its identity-based technology that allows operators to develop access policies for industrial control system devices.
The testing uncovered functionality gaps in authorization and authentication platforms and showed that no single platform provided protection against all cyberthreat scenarios, highlighting the need for utilities to field multiple platforms across multiple network layers.